Fat Loss

This is a follow up to my massive beginners guide to the very low carb, high fat, ketogenic diet. The question I keep getting lately is “Can you share what a typical day of eating looks like for you?” and this post is meant to address that. So in this post i’ll be sharing some of the keto-friendly foods and meals I eat on a regular basis or daily. If you’re not sure what foods qualify as “keto” friendly, then have a look over at this food pyramid:

I don’t adhere to the idea of “Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner” because on most days, I practice intermittent fasting, so “breakfast” for me is either in the late morning or early afternoon. I don’t eat because it’s “breakfast time” or because it’s “lunch time.” There’s nothing important or necessary about eating breakfast in the morning. I try to eat only when I’m hungry, plain and simple.

I still use MyFitnessPal to log the foods I eat if I want to lose weight.

An apple avocado a day keeps the doctor away

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I used to avoid avocados because of their high fat content, but now I often eat one avocado a day, usually as the first thing to break my fast (“breakfast”) and it’s shockingly filling. They are quite literally, the perfect low carb, keto-friendly food. They have very few net carbs, lots of fiber, and it’s mostly just fat. Not just any fat though, it has a magnificent fat profile of mostly monounsaturated fats. (This is the stuff olive oil has a lot of too.)

I eat avocados either with some Salt & Pepper (pictured) or Soy Sauce or Lemon Pepper. (It’s shocking how good a tiny bit of soy sauce tastes on avocado.)

How to buy and rotate avocados so you always have some ripe ones:

I buy 6-8 avocados at a time because it takes several days for them to ripen and I like to have a good supply.

An easy way to check if they’re ripe without having to smash the skin is to simply push down on the brown stem (if there is one). If it goes down, it’s ready.

If too many avocados are ripening and you want to slow down the process, throw them in the fridge! As simple as that.

With that trick in mind, I usually have 5-10 avocados in the fridge and 5-10 over the counter so that I have a constant supply.

If you have too many avocados that have ripened, make guacamole!

Guamacole is super easy to make:

Mash up all the ripe avocados together

Add some lime

Add some minced up cilantro and you’re good to go!

If you’re at a Mexican restaurant in LA and they serve chips and guacamole, tell them you don’t want the chips, but order some chicken or steak with it and dip it into the guac! Delicious.

Eggs

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Normally I eat 2-3 eggs, a few times a week. They too, like avocados, are a very keto-friendly food. They have zero carbs and are highly nutritious with an excellent amino acid (protein) profile.

Pictured are some fluffy hard boiled eggs with some salt and pepper. Simple and delicious. If I’m boiling eggs for the day, I will boil some extra ones at the same time to keep for egg salad (recipe below).

Other keto friendly ways I prepare eggs?

What about… cholesterol!?

At this point some people will say they are afraid of eggs due to the cholesterol. Well, let me remind you that cholesterol is the backbone for many things our body needs, like our hormones! It’s also found in the membrane of every cell of your body. A lot of people think saturated fats are bad, therefore all fats are bad. Well… we know that even saturated fats aren’t bad for you because the amount of saturated fats you eat don’t have any bearing on the saturated fats found in your blood stream, especially on a ketogenic diet. If you get some blood work done, Drs. Phinney & Volek say that if you’re on the keto diet and your cholesterol goes up but all your other biomarkers have improved, then it is not something to worry about in the least bit given all the other improvements.

Egg Salad

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This makes for a nice lunch idea that’s easy to customize and takes barely a few minutes to make because you just mash the ingredients together.

Before (Just soft boiled eggs and avocado)After (mash up eggs, avocado and mayonnaise)

Mash up all these ingredients together:

1 Avocado

2 Soft-Boiled Eggs (hard boiled works too but soft is creamier)

There are MANY ways to soft boil eggs but this is what I do:

Put water and eggs in small pot.

Turn heat on high.

When it starts boiling vigorously (takes about 5-6 minutes), I turn off the heat and cover the pot and set a timer for 3 minutes.

When the timer is up, I pour the water out and pour in cold water to halt the cooking process. It’s best to just transfer them to a bowl with cold water.

If you’re on the go or don’t have much time, some people use an electric egg cooker like this one which makes it a brainless activity to cook the eggs to the desired setting (soft, med, hard) without having to tend to it if you’re getting ready for work.

I personally like the EVOO and Soy Sauce, but you could also just put it all with BUTTER, too. That’s keto friendly, too. Oftentimes the veggies are actually there to act as a carrier for the butter.

Blueberries! The Keto-Candy.

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What’s so special about THESE blueberries?

They’re frozen!

Frozen blueberries are my favorite little snack! I love the crunch they provide and since they’re so cold, I can’t eat a bunch of them because then I’ll get brain freeze. This also reminds me to treat berries like candy, so I eat them sparingly and do NOT eat them daily. When they’re on sale, I stock up on a bunch of them, wash them and keep them in the freezer. (I eat raspberries and strawberries sometimes too, but blueberries are my jam.)

Baked Fish

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Fish is something I have ~3x a week that I’m always trying to eat more of. On the days that I don’t eat fish, I take a fish oil capsule to get more Omega 3’s in my diet.

This was a fillet of Alaskan Salmon surrounded by potatoes for the non-keto guests. 🙂I was at a friends and I suggested we bake some fish (tilapia), brussels sprouts and mushrooms and they didn’t even know we were eating a totally keto-friendly meal!

Other fish choices: I don’t eat tuna anymore because these Wild Sardines in Olive Oil and Smoked Sprats are superior in every way. They are lower on the food chain than tuna and don’t accumulate toxins (such as mercury) and have a superior Omega 3 to 6 ratio! (Btw, I used to buy Riga Sprats but turns out they are stored in rapeseed oil, which is a terrible vegetable oil to eat, not only cause rape is bad, but it’s mostly bad fats… so no more of that brand!)

Salmon and Cream Cheese (And Avocado!?)

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I used to eat Smoked Salmon lox sparingly because it was kind of pricey. But, turns out it’s not so bad in price considering how delicious it is and how a little bit goes a long way with other ingredients.

In this photo I put salmon, cream cheese, avocado, green onions and some aleppo pepper on a big piece of lettuce to make a dank meal.

Optional: If you want a “carrier”, you could put it all on a piece of lettuce.

Normally people eat the above ingredients sandwiched between a bagel. But you can’t have a bagel on a keto diet. Bagels are just bread. Fuck bread. Why would I want that stuff getting in the way of the deliciousness in the middle?

Cheese and Olives

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I’ve been eating this Kerrygold Dubliner Irish cheese pictured above as a standalone snack. I love to get a big knife and make extremely thin slices of these. The taste is so complex and satisfying. (If you go to Costco, they are available there. And speaking of Kerrygold brand, by the way, their Irish butter tastes really good too. All their products come from grass-fed cows.)

Anyway, I may or may not eat this cheese with some olives. Olives have almost no net carbs and have a great fat profile, so they are a great little keto-friendly snack. I love to eat these olives that are in brine/salt, which is perfect since we need more sodium on the keto diet anyway.

There are also SO MANY other types of cheese you could eat it’s endless. If you’re on the go, string cheese is such a great little thing to have on the go. (Remember: do NOT get the low-fat/reduced-fat versions of these things.)

If you’re on the go, Babybel cheese is pretty good too cause it comes in small packages and they have a bunch of flavor options (Gouda, cheddar, mozzarella). Avoid the light blue one because that’s the reduced-fat version.

Cream Cheese and Bastirma (seasoned, air-dried cured beef)

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One of my favorite dairy things is to get cream cheese and mix it with some Armenian cured deli meat called Bastirma. This is one of those foods that are not well known if you’re not familiar with the culture, but it’s highly spiced meat and the slices are extremely thin and delicious with some cream cheese.

Here are some other Middle Eastern Foods that are keto friendly

Since my father is Lebanese-Armenian and my mother is Armenian-Armenian, I know about some foods that others may not know about that are very low carb, so here goes:

Lebni / Labneh (Strained yogurt)

This is a type of kefir cheese, made in a similar process as Greek Yogurt, but it tastes much more tart, like sour cream. Traditionally it’s spread on a plate and drizzled with olive oil and topped with some dried mint. I think it’s dank as fuck.

Many brands exist, this is just one of them.

Sujuk / Soujoukh / Yershik

This is type of highly spiced, dried beef sausage that you could find at your local international market as well, probably in the deli section. I love to eat them with cream cheese. Other delicious things you could do is go to the deli section and get provolone cheese and mortadella.

They look/taste very different from brand to brand, try them all!

Drawbacks with processed meat: One of the main drawbacks of deli meat, or highly processed meats is that their protein becomes inferior and a lot of important minerals (like potassium and magnesium) are lost as well, so I don’t make them my main source of protein.

Nuts: Macadamia’s and Almonds

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As you know, when one is on a low carb diet, they should replace those calories with fat and nuts are predominantly high in fat. The top two nuts that are very low in carbs AND have a very healthy fat profile are macadamia’s and almonds!

Warning: Nuts are high in calories and it’s easy to “accidentally” eat a few hundred calories of these if you are just munching mindlessly. Even if you practice severe carbohydrate restriction, eating more calories than you need can result in fat gain.

Macadamia Nuts

I never used to get macadamia nuts because they were pricey. Well, turns out, a lot of these limitations I create are all in my head because they actually last a very long time! What may seem like a pricey purchase at first, turns out to be completely worth it!

Also, as strange as it sounds, I like frozen raw almonds as well. You could have other nuts too, like cashews and peanuts for example. But as dank as they are, I can’t go to town on them cause they’re somewhat higher in net carbs, so I eat them very sparingly and infrequently. If I’m going to have peanuts, I usually opt for peanut butter, actually. And on occasion, I go for cashew butter.

Milk Alternatives for when I want a creamy drink

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Unsweetened flax, coconut, soy, hemp, cashew, almond milks.

Note that ALL of these must specifically say “UNSWEETENED” on their label. The beauty of these are that they are only 30-45 calories per cup.

Coconut Milk: In the summertime, there’s something so brisk and refreshing about coconut milk. (It reminds me of summer, probably thanks to all those dark tanning products that smelled like coconut oil.)

Hemp and Flax and Cashew milks: I have only tried these a couple times, they are a bit more fatty, creamy, thick and I like them.

Almond milk is my favorite. Some people don’t like it at all and that bewilders me, but… I like it and it’s a yummy drink to me. I sometimes will heat up a cup and drink it hot.

Soy Milk is my go to when I’m looking for a more hearty drink (clocking in at 100cals/cup), I really like unsweetened soy milk. It’s also great to add to your tea so it’s like a chai-latte. Protip: If you live near some Asian stores, you can find unfiltered soy milk which tastes like the real thing. But you must make sure it’s not sweetened.

Arugula Salad

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This is stupid easy. I just added arugula and avocado and salt & pepper and olive oil. How easy is that? Really easy. You could also do something similar with spinach. Loves me some spinach.

Mayonnaise

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I’m dedicating a section just to mayonnaise because for most of my adult life, I used to avoid mayonnaise like the plague because I thought it was automatically bad for me just because it was high in fat. Well, to be frank, a lot of store-bought mayo IS made with shitty soybean oil which has a bad fat profile. But now, since I’m a tiny bit smarter and doing this keto thing right, I have been eating it and I must say, it’s pretty DAMN good as a condiment.

Store Bought Mayo Advice

Almost every brand of mayo is made with soybean oil (which has a really bad fat profile, mostly poly-unsaturated fatty acids (PUFA’s) that happen to be mostly Omega-6’s.) If you’re going to eat store-bought mayo, it’s best you look at the ingredients and find the one made with canola oil. Canola oil is mostly mono-unsaturated fatty acids (MUFA’s) and has a much more healthy PUFA profile due to a 1:3 ratio of omega 3:6’s. (Soybean oil ratio is more like a pathetic 1:6 ratio of omega 3:6’s.)

Note: It’s really easy to make your own mayonnaise if you have a blender. It requires just egg yolks, oil, some lemon and a few pinches of spices. Unfortunately everytime I’ve made my own mayo, I didn’t find it as good as the store bought stuff, so, if you got a an awesome recipe, please let me know!

Yolk + olive oil + garlic = aioli

Yolk + canola oil = mayonnaise

Yolk + butter = hollandaise

Keto-Friendly Foods On The Go

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If I’m on the go, I usually don’t have hunger and can get away with several hours but… if I do want to eat…

If you’re not a fan of spitting sunflower shells, already-shelled-for-you roasted and salted sunflower seeds/kernels are also pretty delicious too. These also are found at gas stations. Just make sure they don’t have added sugar.

The aforementioned macadamia nuts and almonds sometimes come with me as well on the road.

I also take an avocado with me sometimes. Here’s how to eat a ripe avocado without any tools:

Bite the skin at the top to remove it and spit it out.

Squeeze the avocado out from the bottom up. Eat it as it comes out the top hole.

Eventually the seed will come out as well and you just keep squeezing it out into your mouth and into the trash or straight into the trash.

Fair warning: Keep the avocado in a place that won’t get mashed in your bag by other things or else it will make a mess. Ask me how I know. 😛

Mineral Management and Daily Supplements

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Mineral management is especially important on a ketogenic diet to prevent feeling fatigue (especially before strength/endurance training) or if you’re not feeling well while in ketosis. These are the following things I take:

Sodium & Potassium: It’s no coincidence that many foods I eat are somewhat higher in sodium overall, and that’s because the kidneys excrete more than usual while in ketosis and so I make up for it with the higher sodium intake. But, to not get too much sodium, I use “LoSalt” instead of regular salt because it’s more potassium in it and half the sodium (salt) which makes for a better balance. I also drink chicken broth almost daily.

Magnesium: Two of these magnesium pills a day (400mg) for 20 days will help stabilize magnesium levels. This improves almost every cellular process in your body (especially important for sleep and muscle cramps). This is doubly important on keto due to the kidneys excreting faster than usual.

Fish Oil: If I did not eat fish that day, I’ll take 1-2 capsules of this fish oil which has 700mg of omega 3’s in each capsule.

Warning: Other fish oil brands will say “1200mg” but really, only 300mg of it will only be Omega 3 fatty acids.

Protein: If I haven’t ate much protein or I had a particularly hard strength training day, I will drink a scoop of vegan protein powder and add cocoa and chia seeds in a blender bottle. The unflavored one tastes really blah but the chocolate or french vanilla ones are a good powder that gets the job done with minimal fuss.

Special mention for Fiber

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If I’m feeling like I ate too many things that don’t have any fiber (read: meat, cheese, etc) and feel blocked up or constipated, then I will have 1-2 teaspoons of this organic psyllium husk mixed in water. It’s pure fiber which causes me to poop gloriously sometime later that day.

Nowadays, if I’m going traveling or camping, I will take a zip lock bag of this stuff with me and my bowel movements won’t feel disrupted from the traveling and it works incredibly well.

I’m also a big fan of soups (shrimp curry, broccoli cream, etc) of all sorts, especially cause I use the chicken broth as a base. (I have so much broth cause I boil chicken for my dog almost weekly.) In the future I will share some more bomb, low-carb friendly foods that are easy to prepare. I think there is merit here for me to do that. What do you think? Let me know if you liked this article and thanks for reading!

What you’re getting into: 9000+ words if you read them all.
How long it will take? Forever if you get distracted by… OH LOOK, CAT PHOTOS.
I’ve been writing fervently so strap in and FOCUS damn you, FOCUS!

This is a follow up to my article: When is a calorie not a calorie? In there I say how for a couple years I mostly counted calories to deal with fat loss (or muscle gain) and now I’ve been refining that approach. I’ve been feeling how different macronutrient ratios (ratio of carbs, protein and fat) affect my body both mentally and physically. A diet high in carbohydrates (the standard american diet) seems to make appetite ravenous while a very low carb, high fat diet (ketogenic diet) seems to be very satiating and provides consistently greater mental focus throughout the day. As a result, it’s a more sustainable way of experiencing fat loss and muscle gain, without having to deal with much hunger or the psychological addiction to food. I absolutely love geeking out on this subject matter so get ready for a fat treat.

With the progress pics at the end of this article to prove it!

What is the ketogenic (keto) diet?

Click here to read more about what the ketogenic diet is.

The keto diet is high in fat and low in carbs. It’s NOT high in protein.

All foods consist of three macronutrients (“macros”) in varying ratios:

The ketogenic diet is not intended to be a temporary diet for weight loss, although it works great for that, but it is more of a lifestyle change where you consistently and drastically reduce the amount of carbs you ingest. It not only makes you burn fat for energy (more on that below) but helps you become very aware of how rampant and ubiquitous carbs are in this day and age. Now that I have some experience with it, I feel confident to share with you what this diet is about. With that said, I don’t feel like an expert, relative to the geniuses who have been researching this diet for decades, so throughout this article I’ll be dropping their names for you to expand your understanding.

Why is it called ketogenic?

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The word ketogenic is made up of two words: keto- and -genic.

The prefix “keto-” is short for ketones.

The suffix “-genic” is the same as genesis, which refers to “the creation of something”

So the word ketogenic literally means the “creation of ketones.”

Ketones are created from the break down of fat for energy when the body doesn’t get enough carbs.

When the body is creating ketones, it is said to be in a state of ketosis where fat becomes the main source of fuel for energy rather than sugar (glycolysis).

I explain this in further detail below.

How is ketosis achieved?

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Ketosis is achieved by practicing strict carbohydrate restriction consistently. The general limit is about 25-50grams of net carbs a day which is far lower than the typical 200-300grams most people ingest per day. (Net carbs are carbs minus fiber. More about that below.) Those carbs must be replaced with healthy fat sources. It takes a few days for ketosis to actually occur because you have a glycogen supply to get through initially, but one can reach ketosis faster if they exercise. This is discussed in greater detail in the sections below.

What are the benefits of being in ketosis?

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The ketogenic diet was discovered in the early 20th century and was (and still is) a powerful solution toward patients suffering from epilepsy. In the early days, bodybuilders used to practice it without even knowing the mechanisms behind it by doing a “fish and water” diet. It is also the diet that humans historically adhered to naturally before refined sugars became so easily accessible.

The promises of a ketogenic diet are quite impressive:

Helpful for metabolic syndrome (obesity) and preventing diabetes

Increased meal satiety and appetite blunting. This diet is more satiating than a low-fat diet and tends to makes it easier to avoid caloric overconsumption.

Greater rate of fat loss due to state of ketosis rather than glycolysis.

The mitochondria of cancer cells are damaged and require 200x the normal amounts of glucose to replicate at rapid rates. They cannot utilize ketones and cannot survive in ketosis without the presence of excess glucose.

Very high muscle-sparing effect. (Muscle loss is mitigated in ketosis even at a caloric deficit!)

Proven treatment for epilepsy, more effective than current medications without the side effects.

Endurance benefits: After you’re keto-adapted (2-3+ weeks at least), you will experience higher athletic performance, especially for ultra-endurance because you will never “hit the wall” or “bonk” due to glycogen depletion not being a limiting factor anymore.

You could also hold your breath underwater for ridiculously long times. (Your mitochondria become more efficient when running off ketones.)

You can extrapolate that if it’s helping reverse the diseased conditions of people with Type 2 diabetes, cancer, heart disease, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s and so forth, that it may proactively help those of us who are not afflicted by those conditions!

Before I continue: The ketogenic diet is NOT a panacea

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The truth is that there is not a single, perfect diet that works for everybody. In regards to this diet specifically, Dom D’agostino says that this diet is excellent for ~70% of people out there but ~30% of the population does not respond well to this diet. Btw, Dom D’agostino is the expert that originally got me hooked to trying keto. He calls ketones the 4th macronutrient in this podcast with Tim Ferris.

Weight loss is NOT guaranteed on keto: If you’re looking to lose weight, you should still be wary of the total intake of calories. You can still gain weight on a keto diet if you over-eat (like with any diet.) You could technically drink a gallon of coconut oil (that’s 30,000 calories) and still be technically on the “keto diet” but the reality is you’re less likely to eat as much once you break your addiction to carbs. Fat and protein are a lot more satiating and with the absence of carbs, your hunger may stabilize. But I still recommend people to use MyFitnessPal to log the food they eat, not to count calories, but to easily track how many net-carbs they’ve ate. The first time I started keto, it took me a few days just to transition toward the 50g net carb range and it wouldn’t have happened without tracking what I was eating. But once you know you’re consistently choosing the appropriate foods and avoiding all the inappropriate ones, you most likely don’t need to track anything.

Doctors reactions: Unfortunately many medical doctors don’t know much about this diet (or not a lot about nutrition in general) and may not be supportive of this change because they don’t know much about it. They are used to hearing ketones in the scope of ketoacidosis, which is a runaway condition that ONLY occurs in unmanaged Type-1 diabetics and has NOTHING to do with this diet. (The keto-diet is actually excellent at helping diabetics manage their condition.) If you’re unsure what to tell your doctor, it’s very simple: tell them you’ve cut out all carbs and sugars. If you have kidney or heart issues or taking medications, listen to their advice in case this diet is contraindicated in your case.

A Full Diet Break: While taking a full break from the diet from time to time is not mandatory, it’s advisable for the psychological and physiological reasons. I took my first break when I had to go on a road trip and wasn’t sure how to continue the diet, so I didn’t fret about it for that week. It’s recommended that you stay strict with the keto-diet for a couple months at a time, but it’s fine to take a break for a day or a week if need be. Also, when you do take a break, it doesn’t mean you should start eating carbs and only carbs for the sake of them being available to you again. Everything in moderation! (You’ll find the foods don’t taste as good as you thought anyway. Carbs aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.)

Why do you have to restrict the carbs so sharply? How does the body transition to burning fats for energy?

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When it comes to energy metabolism, a hierarchy exists in regards to how the body creates energy:

With the presence of carbs, the body prefers to break down carbs first and foremost. It should be interesting to know that even though carbs are most peoples primary source of food, only 1% of your bodyweight is made up of carbs. Why is that? That’s because your body doesn’t have an ability to store large amounts of carbs. It can only store carbs (in the form of glycogen) in your muscles and some in your liver which amounts to only about 2,000 calories worth for an average male. With the glycogen stores of most people being constantly “topped off,” fats (and excess carbs) have no choice but to become stored as fat.

If you stop eating carbs, the body will start to break down the glycogen (carbs) stored in the muscles and liver for energy to maintain the appropriate blood glucose levels. It takes a few days for this glycogen supply to run out which is why one must be strict with the carb-restriction, and when it does run out, the liver will start making the enzymes necessary to break down fat for energy and turn them into ketones. Ketones are like water-soluble fat molecules that can cross the blood-brain-barrier and provide energy for the brain. There is this myth where people say that you MUST eat carbs because the brain can only survive off carbs. What they don’t know (or conveniently forget to mention) is that the brain operates perfectly on ketones as well.

Evolutionarily speaking it was very common for humans to go a few days without food and be in a state known as “starvational ketosis” due to an absence of food. What we are doing in this scenario is going into “nutritional ketosis” due to an absence of carbs. We’re still eating, but we’re avoiding carbs and the body creates ketones as a result. It’s a way of metabolically hacking into your nutritional processes in a world full of junk foods.

Fun Fact: You’ll know you’re in ketosis when your urine/pee smells funny. That’s because your body is breaking down fat and acetone is one of the byproducts. Your breath may even smell fruity or like alcohol because the acetone volatilizes from the blood stream and into your lungs. In fact, breathalyzers may be able to detect how deeply you’re in ketosis nowadays!

So… What are carbohydrates? Don’t we need them for energy?

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Carbs are sugar. Sugars are carbs. There are simple carbs (monosaccharides) and complex carbs (polysaccharides). There are also sugars found naturally in foods and extra sugars added artificially to foods. In the context of a ketogenic diet, they’re all pretty much the same because the body eventually breaks them down into their simplest forms regardless. (The carbs that you will eat will come almost entirely from veggies or nuts on this diet.)

Despite your body needing to break down carbs first and foremost when they are ingested, carbs are NOT an essential nutrient. An essential nutrient is one your body needs to survive because it won’t be able to make it on its own. But your body readily creates sugar from fat and protein to regulate blood sugar levels.

Many people think they need carbs to perform at their very best performance-wise, but that’s not true either. It takes a few weeks, but after someone becomes completely adapted to the ketogenic diet, they become very, very efficient at burning fats for fuel and the bandwidth or throughput within which your body can do this at is great. It’s been ingrained in us that we need carbs to survive, or perform at our peak as athletes. We see sugar as energy. We see athletes drink Gatorade, so we think we can’t perform at our best without it. We almost rely on it as a crutch. But when you’re keto-adapted you are not chained to the hypoglycemic rollercoaster.

Last but not least, carbs are found in varying degrees in ALL plants. The only way to be completely carb-free is to be a pure carnivore. But the keto-diet is not about being a carnivore. You still eat carbs, but you must generally stay below 50 grams of net carbs, which is the total amount of carbs minus the fiber.

What is fiber?

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Fiber is also a carbohydrate, but we cannot digest it or break it down, so it simply passes through and we poop it out. Fiber is what helps us poop without feeling constipated and is something that you will eat plenty of on a keto diet. It also acts as a natural buffer, slowing down the digestion of carbs and lowers the insulin spikes that may occur. Last but not least, it’s food for the bacteria in your gut which keeps them (and you) happy as well.

Fun fact: Animal cells don’t have cell walls. Only plant and fungi (mushroom) cells do. The cell walls are made of cellulose, which is an indigestible complex carb known as FIBER. When we chew plants, we crush the cell walls and digests the innards of the cells and the cell walls exit as part of our stool as indigestible fiber. For a more nerdy explanation based on biochemistry, read my blog post on carbohydrates.

Fiber is a carb but we can’t break it down, so that’s why we subtract fiber from our total carb intake to get the net carbs.

What’s wrong with carbohydrates?

If you’re overweight, prediabetic or a diabetic (these categories envelope 75% of the US population), then you most likely have an intolerance to carbs which is synonymous with insulin resistance. Carb intolerance is the same analogy as gluten intolerance except instead of gluten (which is a protein found in wheat) affecting you negatively, it is instead an intolerance to all carbs.

What is insulin resistance? Insulin resistance is the same as carbohydrate intolerance. Every time you eat a bunch of carbs (which pretty much everyone does every few hours) your bloodstream becomes inundated with sugar and the body must quickly get rid of this sugar from the blood stream because it is dangerous. The only way for the sugar to leave the bloodstream and be oxidized and be used for energy (which it MUST immediately) is by the pancreas creating insulin because insulin is the main hormone that helps drive sugar into cells to be used for energy.

With 50-65% of the Standard American Diet being carbs, your pancreas must constantly create insulin to subdue the spike in blood sugar. Eventually the insulin becomes less effective (insulin sensitivity goes down, insulin resistance goes up) and the body cannot control the carbs as well. Because the insulin levels are constantly elevated due to the constant pouring of sugar into the body, the pancreas eventually becomes overworked and damaged and then you may become a diabetic and have to injection insulin into yourself multiple times a day. Also, every time your blood sugar spikes, it is causing an inflammatory response that damages the lining of your arteries. This is a massive issue that leads to strokes and heart disease and the number of prediabetics are rising dramatically. This is the biggest issue of our lifetime.

People think diabetes is an easy issue to handle. You think you just need to inject insulin and you’ll be good? No, it’s not that simple. Do you know who gets the most amputations? People from accidents? Acute trauma victims? No. Diabetics are the number one people that receive amputations. Why? Because when they get a cut or nick on the bottom of their foot, they can’t feel the foot has become infected because they have peripheral neuropathy (numbness due to nerve damage due to high sugar levels damaging their tissues) and by the time they find out, their foot needs to be amputated. This is REAL, people.

And what happens to the fat that you just ate along with the carbs? When carbs are present, it means fat MUST be stored. Your body cannot and will not be able to burn fat with the presence of carbs!!! Your body CANNOT breakdown fat in the presence of insulin. Fat breakdown is inversely proportional to insulin concentration.

To learn more about insulin resistance, watch at least the first 10 minutes of this talk by Dr. Jeff Volek, who is not only a Registered Dietitian and Exercise Scientist but a prominent researcher and one of the only RD’s who openly endorsed low-carb/ketogenic dieting in the 1990’s.

Which foods are high in carb’s and therefore prohibited from the keto diet?

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ALL Grains are off limits, regardless of them being “whole” or “refined” such as:

Wheat

Rye

Oats

Corn (this is in most foods nowadays whether you realize it or not in the form of high fructose corn syrup; HFCS)

Fruits, fruit juices, and dried fruits (and jams and honey) are almost purely sugar and not low in it either!

The only fruits that are acceptable (because they’re very low in sugar) are berries (blueberries, strawberries, raspberries) and only about 4oz TOTAL in a day.

Avocado’s are totally acceptable as well because they’re actually quite fatty.

(Yes it’s crazy that I can’t eat a banana, but a banana is a tropical fruit high in sugar. One banana has 21g of net carbs, which is nearly the alotted amount for the DAY on a keto diet! Half of the sugar in any fruit is fructose which is the most anti-ketogenic sugar available. It cannot be metabolized anywhere but the liver because nothing else has the enzymes to metabolize it, therefore it refills liver glycogen rapidly. It is guaranteed to take you out of ketosis, alongside being harmful to the liver.)

Milk

Reduced/Low-Fat Foods must be avoided.”Low Fat” cream cheese, for example, has added sugar to make it taste better. Most “low fat” products do. Buy the regular, full-fat versions of things!

Goodbye always-too-sweet Armenian pastries! (Ironically they don’t taste very good anymore. And bread tastes like cardboard.)

Now, at this point, a lot of people will say “I like food too much.”

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One must eat to live and not live to eat. -Moliere

Eating is something you do MULTIPLE times a day EVERYDAY for your entire life. It is the #1 thing that can make or break your health without the use of drugs. Think about it: You are putting pounds of stuff IN YOUR BODY and your body has to process them ALL. If they’re constantly causing inflammation, increasing your chances of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and obesity, you still going to tell me you like food too much to care about your health? Maybe some people don’t have as strong of a will to live as others. I don’t know. But when people tell me they like food too much, it’s almost like they’ve already given up.

Ice Cream:HaloTop is the best low-carb ice cream that you could buy in a store. Breyers also has “CarbSmart” ice creams in the stores if you look hard you may find it.

How do I know how many NET carbs a food has?

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To know how many carbs a food has, you have to simply get good at reading the nutrition facts of foods or googling the information. It’s very simple and I will show you how below with the example of an Avocado:

The above label is for 1 avocado that weighs 136grams. (Note: Large “Hass” Avocados weigh between 280 and 330grams, so this would be half a Hass avocado.)

Next, you see this half-avocado has 227 calories, 21 grams total fat, 12 grams of total carbs and 2.7 grams of Protein.

On a keto diet, we are mostly concerned with Net Carbs:

Net Carbs = Total Carbs (12g) minus Dietary Fiber (9g).

So the net carbs are 3 grams in this case.

An avocado is a perfect, keto-friendly food. It is not only very low in carbs but also has a great fat profile due to it being mostly monounsaturated fats and lots of fiber.

If there is no nutrition label (like there often isn’t for groceries or unpackaged foods), you could simply google “Avocados Nutrition Facts” on your smartphone and google will spit out the above data for you immediately.

Side Note: It’s interesting how google is getting better at parsing the information from other websites. If you google the weather, nutrition info, recipes or wikipedia type stuff, google will present that information to you without you having to go to the site anymore and that’s been siphoning traffic away from those sites.

So what do you eat if you don’t eat carbs?”

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If you are putting a limit on the number of carbs, you must make it up with the two other macros: fat and protein. This would be the perfect time to remind you that the ketogenic diet is NOT a high-protein diet. It only requires a moderate amount of protein, most likely an amount you are already ingesting. The difference here is that most of your calories will be coming from FAT!

But isn’t fat… bad?

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Since the USDA came out with dietary guidelines to have a “Low Fat, High Carb Diet”, the prevalence of obesity, heart disease and diabetes have only increased. People started to correlate the eating of fat, with becoming fat. But you are NOT what you eat. The fallacy that fats are bad was based on shoddy evidence and has ruined many a peoples lives because of it.

The governments “Low Fat” recommendation was created without a shred of evidence of it being beneficial. (Source)

For example, dietary cholesterol (cholesterol that you eat) does NOT increase blood cholesterol levels. Also, the traditionally called “artery clogging saturated fats” turn out to have no link to heart disease and are not proven to clog arteries. What is most interesting about a low-carb diet is that blood levels of saturated fat will go down (despite eating way more of it) because the body promptly must break it down to CO2 and water! It is now understood that atherosclerosis (the hardening of arteries) occurs due to the presence of high sugar which inflames the lining of the arteries! (Sorry for the exclamation marks, but this is a big deal. It flips everything we know about “diet” on its head.)

Three MASSIVE meta-analyses show that DIETARY saturated fat and coronary heart disease (CHD) have no association. (Source links: first, second and third.)

PLASMA Saturated Fat (fat level in your blood), on the other hand, DOES show an increase in heart disease, diabetes and even some forms of cancer. (Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4)

So if the intake of saturated fat is not linked to heart disease, but a high amount of it in the blood stream is, then the question is, what’s contributing to this increased circulation of fat in your system?

When you’re over-consuming carbs relative to your tolerance and restricting fat intake, your liver turns those carbs into fat (packaged into LDL particles, the unhealthy fat) and we know that’s associated with insulin resistance. So again, you are NOT exactly what you eat. Dr Jeff Volek states this in his presentation cued right here. He also continues to talk about the studies he’s personally conducted that show how a ketogenic diet decreases the levels of saturated fat in your blood despite eating a diet high in fat!

Fun Fact: In the 1940’s pigs were temporarily fed coconut oil (which is mostly saturated fat) hoping to fatten them up with this relatively cheap but high calorically-dense food source coming from the Philippines and the ranchers were PISSED cause it made their pigs more lean and active! There’s a reason why chickens and pigs are commercially fed GRAINS today: It fattens them up the fastest!

If you want to understand the history of why the current USDA guidelines are so messed up, watch or listen to this talk by Tim Noakes who is another expert in regards to this field.

Okay, so you eat mostly fat, some protein and very little carbs… But what does that mean in terms of real food? What does your day consist of?

Other common vegetables such as cauliflower, tomatoes, onions, peppers, cucumbers and eggplants can be eaten too, but must be done moderately as they’re not very low in net carbs as the other stuff listed above. But, I know those foods are essential to cooking so I still use them, but use less of them. For example, I still sautée or grill onions but I use slightly less than I used to.

Other nuts tend to be higher in net carbs but can be had sparingly. For example, cashews and peanuts (and peanut butter!) can be eaten too but you cannot go to town on them in the same manner as you can with macadamia’s and almonds.

You must read the nutrition labels but lots of dairy products are acceptable.

Cream cheese, sour cream, heavy cream, it’s all good as long as you don’t get the “low fat” versions.

Kefir cheese/Lebne is fine

Yogurt is interesting: If you glance at the nutrition label, the carbs listed may seem high but they originate from lactose (milk sugar) in the milk before the yogurt was made. But over half of this is turned to lactic acid during the fermentation process, which is easily absorbed without raising your insulin level. Make sure the yogurt is plain, not vanilla.

Fruits

Avocados

Berries (Blueberry, Strawberry, Blackberry, Raspberry) about ~4oz total per day, which would be like ~40 blueberries, I like to eat these frozen.

That’s pretty much it for fruits. Yes I know it’s crazy I don’t eat bananas while on keto. They are a tropical fruit high in sugar, 21g of sugar in a banana!

Having yummy berries are acceptable on keto and jam packed with nutrients!

Small piece of very dark chocolate (80% or higher) can be fit into the diet as well if you’re into that.

Thai or Curry Soups can often easily be keto-friendly. (Bok Choy, Bamboo shoots, basil, these are all keto friendly)

Sweeteners that should be used are Stevia and Erythritol which are naturally occurring “sugar alcohols” and not artificial sweeteners.

Avoid Sucralose (Splenda), it will mess with hunger signals and leave you wanting to eat more.

How sustainable is such a restrictive diet? How do you eat out?

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When I first started this diet, I thought it wasn’t very sustainable due to how restrictive it was. The first time I did this, it took me about 4 days to transition from eating 150-200g carbs down to only 50g net carbs. I was logging the food I eat to know how many net carbs I was at and what it would take to get there. (That’s not necessary, but recommended! It’s a learning experience!)

I was able to sustain the diet for about a month, then I had to go on a road trip that included camping and realized this was going to be quite challenging, so I decided to not fret about it and took a break for 2 weeks from the keto-diet. Then when I returned home, I went back on keto and I’ve been going almost 3 months solid while adhering to the macros. I even went out on camping trip again, and a separate road trip and was able to remain in ketosis the entire time because I was much more experienced this time.

Now, it’s only becoming easier and easier to avoid carbs and I don’t need to log the foods I eat to know I’m in ketosis. I know what foods are off-limits and what’s acceptable and that makes it easy to know that I’m eating very little carbs. However, with that said, I do want to take a break and eat some carbs every 2 months now.

I thought I could never eat pizza. Turns out I was wrong. There is a keto-alternative to EVERYTHING. I now make pizza at home. Instead of a flour crust, I use cauliflower rice (cauliflower in a blender) and it’s shocking how much it tastes exactly like bread after it’s baked in an oven.

I thought I could never eat cereal again. I found this thing called Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) that is pure protein and it mimics frosted flakes if I simply add some Erythritol (a natural ‘sugar alcohol’ sweetener) over it and eat it with unsweetened almond milk.

Foods that call for being fried and battered with Panko bread crumbs (a big no no): If you get fried pork rinds (chicharonnes) and crush them, it’s the perfect replacement for the bread crumbs.

Eating out is definitely one of the more difficult things to do but not impossible. Fast food products tend to all be high in both carbs AND fat simultaneously. For this reason, I try to avoid eating out as much as possible, but it’s actually not too difficult to find an option that works at any decent restaurant.

Most restaurants have decent options for salads that will be low in carbs.

If you’re at a burger joint (In N Out), tell them you want it protein style with the lettuce wrap instead of the buns.

If you’re at a burrito joint (Chipotle), tell them you don’t want the wrap but the bowl. No rice and beans. But double carnitas, double fajita veggies and add guacamole if you want.

My favorite resource is to go to r/keto and /r/ketorecipes and use the search feature. Like, if I have a lot of sour cream and I want to know what to do with it, I search for sour cream and see what ideas I can get.

This image makes for a good quick reference.

Apps: There’s also a site and app called KetoFinder that will give you the lowest-net-carb options at every fast food place! And also another app called Calorie Cap which allows you to search the restaurant options based on the macros you set!

Can you get all the proper nutrients off of it? How does one create a well formulated keto diet?

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Yes you could get all the nutrients! Eggs, seafood, nuts, vegetables and meat have ALL of the micronutrients you need within them. The keto diet will often times actually add to the diversity and nutrition because you’re replacing foods that are high in carbs and very low in nutrition (read: rice, noodles, crackers, potato chips, etc).

There are many details one should implement to make this a well formulated ketogenic diet.

Keto-flu may occur and is solved by having some bullion or broth.

In the first few days, you MAY experience flu-like symptoms (stuffy nose, headache) known as the keto-flu. Many people say these are literally withdrawal symptoms from carbs. Almost always the solution to the keto-flu is to get more electrolytes in your system and you’ll likely feel instantly better. Interestingly enough, if you’re in full ketosis and you eat carbs, you might get flu-like symptoms again as well. (It makes it really obvious how pro-inflammatory some carbs are.)

On this diet it becomes more important to ensure you’re getting more sodium, potassium, and magnesium.

The kidneys will tend to excrete these more than retain while in ketosis.

Instead of using regular iodized salt, get Morton Lite Salt or AltoSalt cause it has half the sodium and the ratio allows you to get more potassium in. (Note: If you have a history of kidney failure, heart failure or diabetes, or are taking medications, ask your doctor if this is okay.)

Broth is practical for me because I always boil chicken for my dog and I drink a cup or two of the broth daily or use it as a base for any soup. It’s the best!

For the magnesium, it’s recommended you take a supplement.

This is arguably the most important supplement you need on this diet.

Many people are deficient in magnesium and need more of it as they get older and it takes at least 20 days of daily intake for the magnesium to be repleted in the body.

Someone may be wondering how you’re getting Vitamin C if you’re not eating fruits like oranges. Well, truth of the matter is that many vegetables have vitamin C and the most interesting part to me is that the less carbs you have in your system, the less vitamin C you need because glucose competes with Vitamin C for access to the same metabolic pathways! (Source)

It’s also recommended you get blood work done after 6 months to check your overall biomarkers and see how your body is doing. Note: Many people will undoubtedly look like they are doing worse during the first couple months of keto because there’s so much free-fatty-acids being released into the blood stream. Until the body is fully “keto adapted” and the weight is stabilized, lipid levels (triglycerides) may look elevated, so definitely don’t be alarmed from a single test! (Many researchers got their data all wrong by blood-testing only 4 days into a keto-related-study and assuming those results were accurate in the long run.)

Fat profile: I’ll explain how to read fat macros in another blog post but it’s not something you should fret about. Just like ALL diets, you should avoid trans-fats. If in the ingredients you see the word “hydrogenated” oil, you should cuss at the manufacturer and put it back on the shelf.

Dr. Stephen Phinney has a great presentation here on how to go about customizing this diet to your needs:

So far I presented to you some links by Dr. Jeff Volek and Dr. Phinney. Well, these two amazing individuals wrote a book together. It’s one of the best modern books on how to do a low carb diet. They explain the practical ways to go about this diet, including recipes and ideas on how to perfect the diet to your needs.

But I can’t afford this! Isn’t this type of diet expensive?

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While it’s true that carbs are definitely, by far, the most easily accessible of all foods. What is not true, however, is that a high fat diet is much higher in cost. If you do any sort of meal-prep, it will definitely come out to the same cost, if not cheaper cause you’re not eating out as much. Here’s an example of a person who made 2 weeks worth of lunch in under 5 minutes for $1.72 a meal using chicken, broccoli, and ready made alfredo sauce (which is basically butter, cream and cheese, all perfectly keto friendly).

When it comes to buying protein sources from animals, you actually save a lot of money because you don’t buy the chicken breast, but instead go for the cheaper chicken thighs and legs. Instead of buying steak, buy organs such as liver and prepare it like a G. It’s like a super-vitamin in meat-form, and it’s cheaper!

Personally, I never used to buy avocados because they cost $1-1.50 each in most stores AND take days to ripen so I couldn’t enjoy them immediately. I also never used to buy macadamia nuts even though I loved them because they were the most expensive nuts. Well, now I buy avocados AND macadamia nuts and it turns out these foods are quite filling and they last me quite a while. Just the fact that I know macadamia nuts are expensive makes me aware that I can’t eat these until the bag ends. Hell, I tried to do that with almonds and failed miserably. My jaw muscles cramped up and I couldn’t continue to eat them even if I wanted.

Hell, if anything, I’ve saved a ton of money by simply not eating out as much and never buying foods on the go or stopping by starbucks to get a $5 sugar laden “coffee” drink! It’s even forced me to make my own pizza (using a cauliflower crust!) and just cooking more simple things in general on my own saves me money in the long run.

Don’t you get bored of eating the same foods?

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First of all, most people eat the same foods over and over again. We all have our select favorite foods that we choose repeatedly. But in any case, there are so many ways of preparations and variations of the “same” food!

For example, let me focus on the few staples that I eat almost daily:

For milk, I have so many choices: Get the UNSWEETENED version of any of the following and you’re good!

What are the practical pros and cons of the keto diet?

By far the greatest benefit I’ve personally experienced is the greater mental focus consistently throughout the day. I don’t experience hypoglycemia (low sugar crash) anymore in between meals.

You break your addiction to carbs.

You don’t feel hungry as frequently.

If overweight, weight loss is most likely to occur. (Note: like any other diet it takes PATIENCE for fat to truly come off. In the beginning, it’s always water weight for that first week.)

Better health biomarkers overall.

Less dental cavities. The build up of plaque occurs due to sugar. The bacteria in your mouth feed on this sugar and their waste products are acidic and break down your teeth to give you cavities.

It’s such a restrictive diet that it’s actually really easy to know what you can or can’t eat. For many, it’s the easiest diet they’ve ever done due to this. I’ve had people tell me that they do very well on the keto diet because it’s so limiting, it makes it a no brainer as to what’s allowed and not allowed. I personally find the restrictiveness of it is a good opportunity to find out what the keto-alternative is of any food I’m craving that’s off-limits. If I ever need to know, I go to r/keto and use the search feature and find out.

It will force you to get more fiber than you think you will get cause the carbs are going to come from plant sources that are naturally quite high in fiber.

It’s made me almost completely stop eating out or getting snacks just because I hadn’t ate for a couple hours and saved me a lot of money in that regard. It’s actually made me want to cook more than ever.

You will find that you cannot eat ANY junk foods. Literally 80% of the super-market becomes off limits. You’ll find yourself shopping around the edges of the supermarket.

This diet makes you hyper-aware of how much sugar is in nearly every product out there.

Cons

You can’t eat any food you want, obviously.

When transitioning into ketosis, one may temporarily experience flu-like symptoms due to the withdrawal from carbs. But this is easily solved by an increased intake of salt, bullion or bone broth!

“Cheat” Foods that used to taste good, taste really shitty now.

Bread tastes like cardboard, and junk food well, tastes like junk.

You have to refuse most foods offered to you. Explaining to people why you can’t eat such and such opens up a bag of worms. People have beliefs in regards to nutrition on par with religion so they get super defensive OR feel guilt for eating carbs in front of you.

ProTip: If the co-worker offers you the morning donuts, don’t say “I can’t have donuts anymore.” People will urge you to have one. (“Come on, not even one?”) Instead say “I don’t eat donuts anymore.” If you say you can’t have any, they’ll try to convince you that you could get away with having one. If you say you DON’T eat them because you DON’T WANT TO, then that’s a different scenario because people generally don’t have much to say to something you don’t want. It’s also positive reinforcement for YOU that you do not want it and not that you want it but can’t have it! Feel me?

Social circumstances like drinking alcohol at a bar go out the window.

Order a club soda on ice with a slice of lemon and straw to fit in. (Pro: You saved $12 for a god damn cocktail.)

If you really want alcohol, you could order a rum with diet coke and you’ll be fine.

In the list above, remember I said a glass of red wine or white wine is fine. And for hard liquor, unsweetened spirits of vodka, rum, gin, tequila, whiskey, scotch, brandy, bourbon, cognac are acceptable. A lot of people will drink a little bit of this stuff just alone on the rocks, or with a diet coke or club soda and lime.

Basically, Social circumstances, like barbecue’s, on the other hand, usually means you’re eating their meat, veggies, guacamole and skipping all the chips/bread.

For a long time I counted my calories and because of that, I ended up knowing by heart the calories of almost all foods just by looking at them. I then refined the data in my head so now I know the macro ratios of most foods by heart as well. I’m sure that if I jumped into the keto-diet and tried to learn all these things all at once, it might have been a bit overwhelming, but everybody is on their own journey.

Here are my Progress Pics

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While improving my physique is not a huge priority of mine, I have seen incredible changes in my physique simply from this diet.

During the start of this keto diet, I ate at maintenance-levels (~2,400 calories) while trying to stay under 50g net carbs and tracking my stuff using MyFitnessPal. After a few weeks of consistently staying under 50g net carbs, I completely stopped logging/tracking my food intake which was very liberating. That’s what’s fascinating about this diet, is that it allowed me to experience positive physique changes and continual development in my strength training without having to calorie-count (macro-count) for several months. (I’m really good at calorie-counting and love to do it and find it to be fun, not a chore, because I’m so efficient at it, but not having to do it constantly was a welcome change.)

I felt that practicing severe carbohydrate restriction did indeed reset my satiety/hunger/appetite controls because I was naturally not eating in excess of what I needed. I’m feeling that I naturally was eating slightly less than usual because the fat and protein were more satiating and the carbs were not there to entice me.

In previous fat-loss extravaganzas, I lost fat, but I also lost some muscle, which tends to happen if you’re on the lean side and eating at a caloric deficit.

Weight loss from simply eating at a caloric deficit (Not Keto). Lost fat and some muscle.

On this keto diet, because it is muscle-sparing, I lost fat and retained muscle!

Lost ~8lbs fat and seemingly no muscle loss. This is the best I’ve ever looked IMO and my strength training regimen has been the same. The only difference was the switch to keto. Understand that my main priority is not to look good. I’m happy with the way I look but because I do mostly bodyweight-exercises (as opposed to weightlifting), being leaner makes me feel like a super-human.

In any case, my main priority is to ensure my overall health is good, I’m feeling good and able to recover well between workouts. My recovery between training sessions was (and still is) impeccable on this diet. Feeling like my joints feel FANTASTIC is important to me and they felt fine. Feeling like my body is not fighting an allergic reaction is important to me. Sleeping like a baby is important to me (don’t neglect your magnesium supplement). Having a better physique by getting my diet in check for health is only icing on the invisible cake.

Side Note: On the flip-side, it all makes sense to me how so many people who eat high carbs, especially many vegetarians and vegans, become fat or “skinny-fat” meaning they may look skinny but they have a distended/bloated gut and because many don’t strength train, despite their leanness, they look weak as well.

Instead of using regular iodized salt, use Morton Lite Salt liberally cause it has half the sodium but more potassium and that ratio works better. (Note: If you have a history of kidney failure, heart failure or diabetes, or are taking medications, ask your doctor if this is okay.)

To end this massive post, I will say the following which you’ve probably heard before, but it bears repeating: A lot of people think that just because I workout regularly, it’s easy for me to lose weight. Nothing could be further from the truth. Your physique is determined 80% by your diet and 20% by exercise. But when it comes to CONSISTENT FAT LOSS and the ability to KEEP IT OFF, I think it’s ALL about diet. You CANNOT out-exercise a shitty diet. You cannot out-train a shitty lifestyle. It’s just not how it works. Being active has nothing to do with my physique changes. I’ve been very active for the past decade and my physique has fluctuated many times regardless of my activity-levels because it’s completely dependent on my eating habits and season (Winter/Thanksgiving/Christmas-times come to mind.)

If you are overeating, it’s simply not sustainable to “exercise the extra calories away” because when you realize how much work it takes to burn off a pound of fat, you start to realize that it’s MUCH easier to abstain from eating that extra snack than have to do intense cardio for a few hours. (Most people can’t even sustain that kind of effort even if they wanted to!) This is why I don’t think the recent craze of “Pokemon Go” is going to make a dent in the obesity problem at all. Walking is a nice relaxing thing to do, but it’s SO EASY to negate HOURS of walking with just 1-2 cookies.

People are going to have to kill themselves with exercise if they don’t get their diet in check to not only burn off the extra calories but also burn enough to lose weight. It’s destructive, unnecessary and inefficient. If this topic intrigues you, read my article on why abs are made in the gym but revealed in the kitchen.

In the meantime, I’m glad to be writing again and I hope this massive post was of interest to you. Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts or questions and please share this with others!

Next Up: The question I keep getting lately is “What does a typical day of eating look like for you?” so my next blog post will be me sharing all the keto-friendly foods and simple meals I’ve been eating. Update: Here it is: What I Actually Eat.

Hey everybody, it’s been a while since I’ve created a nutrition-related post… but the time has come for me to start unloading info off my brain. I’ve been focusing on making YouTube videos to help people with mobility or strength training, but nutrition is just as important in regards to health, especially as one gets older, so I’m happy to be writing about this!

As a result of counting calories meticulously for a couple years, I ended up knowing the calories of everything by heart without even needing a food scale anymore. I could now look at a Hass Avocado and know whether it’s 180grams or 220 grams just by looking at it. I could see a piece of chicken or steak and closely estimate how many ounces it is and so forth. (Btw, a food scale is only $10 and very helpful when counting calories!)

So for a very long time, I had the calories in control, to the point of not needing to count calories anymore. But for the most part, I was still eating the Standard American Diet which is very high in carbohydrates/sugar.

The stereotypical diet is very high in sugar.

Isn’t it weird that the acronym for the stereotypical diet of Americans is SAD? Well, cause it is sad. (And hey, Australians, you are included in this as well.)

I noticed that for all of last year (2015), I seemed to have a blanket of fat around my midsection that was proving difficult to get rid of compared to the previous years. And if I ate at a deficit for too long, I noticed a pattern of joint pains cropping up and my will power was not the same as it was before. Was I getting … old? No way! I was also having issues with binge-eating at night after working out. My initial solution to not overeating late at night was to simply go to sleep an hour or two earlier. That helped tremendously, but the huge light bulb moment was when I realized, the now-extremely obvious pattern: the carbs were making me crave more carbs and making my appetite insatiable.

Let’s review the hierarchy of nutritional priorities

The above pyramid created by Andy Morgan shows that calories are the most important factor in determining someones weight. For example, you could be “eating clean” and be taking supplements (protein powder, caffeine, etc) and play with meal timing (eating within 30 minutes post workout, practicing intermittent fasting, etc) but if weight loss is your goal and the calories are still greater than you’re expending, then you’re still going to gain weight. On the flip-side, it’s true that doing something like intermittent fasting (IF) may help you stay within your caloric goal just by virtue of you limiting the hours which you can eat during the day… but my point is that it’s the reduction for the weight loss to occur in that scenario. And just because you do IF, it doesn’t automatically mean weight loss is guaranteed.

So my point is, the calories still need to be in order. That’s why I like calorie-counting. It pretty much guarantees that I’m going to lose weight if I stay within a goal. It also makes me aware of how often I go for food. What makes me go for food. (What is my trigger?) And how much am I really eating? But, there’s more to appetite and the psychology behind food and food addiction that calorie counting doesn’t address.

All calories are not equal

As you see above, every gram of fat has more than double the caloric density of carbs or protein. So, it’s easy to shun fat and say, “Oh I can’t eat fat! I’ll get fat if I do! They are so heavy in calories!” and write them off completely thinking it’s going to be very easy to overeat calories if you eat too much fat. But if you’re not eating fat, then you’re most likely eating carbs, which is what the stereotypical diet contains. And here’s the reality beyond just knowing calories per gram:

Protein and fat are highly satiating. Go ahead, eat that entire avocado which happens to be mostly fat and tell me you’re not feeling substantially full. Fat and protein also take longer to empty out from the stomach so it makes you feel fuller for a longer time.

The USDA pyramid is a joke

The irresponsible USDA food pyramid.

Who in their right mind would recommend 11 servings of BREAD per DAY? That’s a half loaf of bread a day! Bread isn’t even that nutritious! It’s mostly made of refined flour (pure sugar) that they “fortify” or “enrich” with artificially added vitamins and minerals because it’s such a poor source of nutrition to begin with. And those 100-calorie snack packets are a scam! Most of them are pure sugar or high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) which will do nothing but make you more hungry. It’s the overconsumption of sugar/carbs that is contributing to the obesity and diabetes epidemic. The prevalency of massive amounts of carbs in the STANDARD AMERICAN DIET is making people fat!

South Park had an episode where they comically said, “Flip the pyramid upside down and we get the true pyramid.” Turns out, they aren’t too far from the truth, even though it’s supposed to be a comedy.

So with this information in mind, I’ve been refining my diet for the past several months and experimenting with the “ketogenic” diet which is a very low carb diet. I have made fantastic progress in regards to my physique and overall well being.

The interesting thing about this “keto” diet is that even when people are told they could eat however much they want but must practice carbohydrate restriction and replace the carbs with fat, they will tend to naturally eat less calories than they need until their weight stabilizes because they won’t feel hunger as often. Isn’t that interesting? I find it fascinating. It tells us that not all foods and the calories they contain are equal. Some foods blunt appetite while others make your appetite ravenous. And surprise, 80% or more of the items in a super market are almost entirely carbs!

This is a trick that cognitive-behavior therapists employ to prevent binge-eating.

As soon as you know you are going to binge, simply start talking out loud and neutrally describe what you are planning on doing.

It is crucial you don’t mock or disparage yourself in any way. Just neutrally describe your plan, and neutrally describe the implications it will have for you.

Here are a couple examples…

Example #1: The Oreo Binge…

“I am going to open this bag of Oreo’s and start eating them. Maybe I’ll eat all of them in the next 10 minutes. But if I do that, it’ll be like… ::looks at nutrition label:: a total of 2000 calories, which will undo all the hard work I’ve put in last week.”

(Just keep going with this narration through the entire binge.)

“I just ate 3 oreo’s. Pretty satisfying. I think I’m going to have one more.”

“All right, I had 4 oreo’s, and I’m going to stop now, cause it doesn’t taste as good as it did like the first bite anymore.”

Example #2: The Golden Grahams Hour

Just speak out loud and self-narrate neutrally…

“I’m not hungry… but I am going to open this box of Golden Grahams.”

“Okay, forget the bowl, I’m going to just pour this cereal straight into my mouth.”

::carefully pours cereal directly into mouth::

“Mmmm… that was good. Should I get the bowl out? Hmm, I thought I would want more, but not really. You know what, I’m going to go to sleep now, cause it’s 10pm and it would be nice to sleep early for once.”

Example #3: To donut, or not to donut?

If talking out loud would be weird or inappropriate, you could just type out your thoughts, like this…

“Okay, so my boss brought this box of donuts… great… I don’t even like donuts, but everyone is having one, so I want one. Hmm, before I do, let me see how many calories this stuff is. ::Google calories donut::

“Dang each donut is 200 calories though. Even if I have just ONE donut, it would take an extra 30 minutes of cardio just to burn that off. Ehh, never-mind. It’s much less work just say no to this donut, than having to do half an hour of cardio. I’ll just have some hot tea instead. I like tea. Tea doesn’t have any calories in it either. And it’s cold out anyway, so why not.” (Binge, averted!)

How does this work?

Instead of you continuously raiding the fridge and pantries on auto-pilot or cruise control, you simply talk out loud and describe what you’re doing and it automatically forces you to face what you’re doing.

All of a sudden, what was bound to be a very unconscious experience comes to the surface. It doesn’t allow you to “zone out” and “accidentally” eat the entire tub of ice cream.

From a psychodynamic standpoint, it is forcing you to “talk out” rather than “act out.” Generally in psychotherapy we find that talking about an upcoming negative action makes the action less likely to happen, even though you don’t talk about it negatively.

This sounds silly. Does this actually work?

This sounded silly to me too. Actually, it sounded a bit too simple and easy, is more exact.

But yes, it works eerily well every time I’ve applied this trick. Honestly when I do this and remain neutral, I almost feel like a robot. It’s pretty cool. I should make BEEP BOOP sounds too while I’m at it. (Hey, don’t knock something until you try it.)

What if this doesn’t work?

Even if it doesn’t work the first night you do it, if you commit to this, you will eventually find that you automatically and effortlessly binge less and less simply by hearing your behavior described. However I can’t emphasize enough how important it is NOT TO PUT YOURSELF DOWN during the narration, but to simply stay NEUTRAL. Putting yourself down will trigger a defiant attitude that will lead to increased binging.

What is this trick called?

There’s no fancy name for this “trick” other than: MINDFULNESS.

Mindfulness is a state of active, open attention on the present. When you’re mindful, you observe your thoughts and feelings from a distance, without judging them good or bad. Instead of letting your life pass you by, mindfulness means living in the moment and awakening to experience.

Being aware and it happening is half the battle.

And guess what, it works for when you’re angry or dealing with any other addiction or mental health illness. When things start to get intense in your head through stress or anxiety, just start talking out-loud (or typing/writing) to yourself about what’s going on, neutrally.

That’s the power of living in the present moment.

Of course, there are other, more conventional ways, of curtailing binge-eating, and that is to…

Enjoy every spoonful before shoveling more food into your mouth.

I used to constantly shovel food into my mouth, spoonful after spoonful, well before actually completing all the chewing or swallowing of the previous spoonful. So you may notice you do too, especially when you’re hungry. Learn to be aware of this! I mean, it sounds SO basic, right? I’m basically telling you to chew your food and swallow it before you put more food in your mouth. That’s very simple and a “No Duh!” type thing when you read it now, but I bet you do it especially when you are hungry.

Slow things down.

Have you ever timed how long it takes to eat a full meal? It takes 5 minutes or less to eat a full meal if you’re eating like most people. If you slow things down, it still only takes about 10 minutes, but that’s double the enjoyment! We tend to just attack the food. What’s the rush? Take it easy. Enjoy. There’s no lack of food. (And if there is a lack, all the more reason to savor it, RIGHT?)

Use a smaller spoon. You don’t need a tablespoon of food unless it’s soup.

What’s the difference between a sliver of ice cream in your mouth or a heaping tablespoon of it? Both have the same amount of delicious flavor but the big heaping spoon of it has 20 times the calories for no god damned reason! It is wasteful.

Admittedly, it took months for me to be okay with eating cereal with a teaspoon, but now it’s wonderful.

Ration your food.

Sometimes, we might not even put the food into our own personal bowl. Like have you ever eaten ice cream straight from the container? Sure you have! You could inadvertently eat SO MUCH ice cream if you do that. Always take the moment to ration your food and put it in a bowl so you know how much you have to eat so you could pace yourself. Otherwise you know if you eat it straight from the container you’re just going to say, “Okay how about a little bit more” every 30 seconds until next thing you know you’ve had 9 servings of the stuff.

Nowadays, I put a quarter cup (that’s half of half a cup!) of ice cream in a little cup, grab a tiny spoon, and savor every delicious sliver of ice cream.

Feel how digestion starts in the mouth

If you keep chewing food in your mouth without swallowing, you could actually feel the digestive juices in your mouth chemically breaking down the food!

Try this: Put a piece of white bread in your mouth. Chew but DON’T swallow. After a short time (a few seconds to a minute) you’ll start to note that the bread is not only withering away into liquid but also tasting sweeter.

Why am I telling you all this? I just want you to become more aware of this thing called food which you eat everyday. It’s kind of important. It’s what binds us all. If there’s anything we have in common, it’s that we all gotta eat.

In other words, eat like this baby (minus the spoon feeding).

Look how content he is: Slowly chewing the food… closing the eyes and even pausing for a moment for that full immersion. Mmm Mmm Mmm.

So to recap…

Chew your food completely. The only place your body can mechanically break it down is in your mouth anyway! Enjoy the smells and taste of it start to finish before you shovel more food in your mouth. (And I use the word shovel cause it’s hilarious and not far from the truth for how fast we could eat. I could also say we inhale the food, because it sure seems that way sometimes.) Have a great day and enjoy the noms!

Stay tuned for part 2 of this post. It’ll be about how dieting changed my relationship with food.

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